Elworthy snubbed and SABC finally admit summer has arrived

Johannesburg: So, who did the South Africa selectors turn to in their hour of need? Why not Steve Elworthy but David Terbrugge. Which sort of suggests that should either Shaun Pollock (nursing a hamstring strain) or Allan Donald (wonky ankle) breakdown, the 22-year-old Terbrugge is their preferred candidate and that means there is no place for Elworthy in their Test team plans.

There was a scare yesterday when Pollock's hamstring injury caused enough alarm to for management to have the jovial fast-medium bowler placed on stand by for the Test against Zimbabwe and starting in Bloemfontein tomorrow.

Terbrugge is to only join the side should Pollock's injury create further problems and will fly down to the Free State capital later today if need be.

South Africa's coach, Graham Ford, was at first non-committal about the injury but was far happier after the afternoon's preparation session when Pollock came through unscathed.

As it is Zimbabwe's difficulty of being without Heath Streak, their one international strike bowler, has been further exacerbated with the injury to their leg-spinner Paul Strang. With Adam Huckle going into retirement in a huff after the Zimbabwe selectors preferred Strang, Zimbabwe's bowling resources are a touch thinner than they would care to admit.

Australia made the most of Zimbabwe's fielding lapses to score 422 in their one-off Test in Harare two weeks ago and with confidence at breaking point the tourists have more problems than do South Africa.

England, meanwhile, are to have their first pre-tour practice on Thursday in Centurion, now regarded as one of the world's top two Test centres (the other is Adelaide in Australia) with outdoor and indoor net facilities recently described as ``far superior'' to anything available in South Africa.

It is a bit of a snub for the Wanderers, but touring teams now prefer to travel down the M1from their Sandton hotel to the renamed SuperSport Park to training at the Wanderers about 15 minutes for their Johannesburg headquarters.

What was interesting about England's arrival was how initially low key it was. The national broadcaster, SABC and their SAFM programme with the presenter of the 7.30 am sports news slot failed to tell the programme's listeners that Nasser Hussain and the rest of the England side were about to arrive. Which is not surprising at all as they have so far flatly ignored anything which has a domestic flavour at all and news of some under/23 side playing in an obscure Olympic Games qualifying event booted out even World Cup rugby into the background.

Some reference was made to the tour on the Afrikaans service, but it was as fleeting as a blink of an eye.

While independent radio began to tell South Africa what the print media had been writing about for more than a week the national broadcaster slowly jerked awake and first we had a sports programme from London, which usually has a largely rugby/soccer/tennis flavour suddenly admitting a Test was about to be played in Bloemfontein . . . and, wow England have arrived. Just which England side and what they were planning to do was, as usual, another of those SABC mystery lucky dip shows.

When the late afternoon sports show was presented the so-called sports reporter put together a programme which gave the appearance it had been done by a team of primary school children asked to present a project which included the team's arrival.

It was a clumsy, amateur effort and gave the impression the guy is unable to differentiate between the pace of Donald and Pollock and the spin of Paul Adams. The listeners, by now, if they rely on the national broadcaster for their information must have been totally confused.

As if to make up for this poor presentation we had Jane Whitton giving us a five minute run down on the side and trying to piece together an analysis as well as telling the listeners that South Africa, apart from playing Zimbabwe in a Test this weekend, were to play five against a team from England led by Nasser Hussain with Duncan Fletcher as their coach.

More than a month after the season started, SABC suddenly woke up that summer had long arrived and perhaps they should tell the listeners about it.